


Turbulence

by Hazeylemon



Series: Miami Vice [1]
Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: dude idfk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 10:55:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23850046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hazeylemon/pseuds/Hazeylemon
Summary: This is a beginnings of sorts for Mortdecai Smith of Dimension V84-Beta3Following the life of a Morty from Miami as his Rick enters his life and subsequentially ruins it.
Relationships: Rick Sanchez & Morty Smith
Series: Miami Vice [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1718638
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	Turbulence

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't written fiction since i was 15 go easy on me

Morty was maybe about 12 when Rick had come into his life.

The heavy air and the salty beaches were nice. But without friends or really anyone wanting to hang around him, what was the point? Summer was pretty cool; she always had her girlfriends to hang at the boardwalk with her. His parents were always working. They had to pay for beachfront property _somehow_ , the reserves leftover from when Grandma Sanchez died didn’t last forever. Without friends and without his family free, Morty was always left to his own devices.

But Rick came and everything changed.

It was one thing that Rick had taken up the guest room, that was to be expected, but he was barely ever in it. For a while Morty made up all kinds of theories about him; how he never slept, rarely ate, why he rarely interacted with any of them. Vampire kept coming to mind but he’s pretty sure they don’t get old like that...or live in Florida. It was weird, right? A grandpa he barely knew about just moving in like he was part of the family and then... _not_ being part of the family? He’d always peek into the garage to see what he was doing. Rick must’ve noticed Morty poking his head through the door one too many times because he eventually stopped and called him in.

Suddenly, Morty had someone in his life that wanted him around. A friend might not be the right word for it, he could hardly tell if they were really on friendly terms. His grandpa seemed to tear him down every chance he got. But Morty could take it. If he could handle violent, teenage pricks at school, he could deal with one old man. Besides, after a while spent around him, Morty could tell it wasn’t just insults. It was banter.

It took a while for Rick to open up. At first Morty would just stand in the garage with him, wonder why the door was open to let the heat in, and hand him things. Rick barely spoke anything besides commands and criticisms. Morty saw all the sci-fi gadgets and could only imagine what kind of Star Trek-esque life his grandpa had been leading prior to the move in. Why would he leave something like that behind? He got distracted easily, trying to imagine all the space adventures he’d been on.

“The _phillips-head_ , Morty! Get y-y-y-your head outta your ass.” Morty snapped to, looking at his annoyed grandfather and then down to the screwdriver in his hand. He fumbled with it, dropped it, and haphazardly held the _correct_ screwdriver out to his grandpa as he bent to pick up the one he’d dropped. It was taken without so much as a _Gee, thanks, Morty_. That was the usual though, wasn’t it?

“Jeez, Rick, I-I-I love to hang out and help b-but I feel like I get to- I should get to know what I’m helping with, you know?” He placed the tool back on the table in its spot and rubbed his arm. Morty liked being needed but… he also liked being entertained. Rick didn’t even have good music on. “Y’know- maybe I could get mom to let us bring a TV out here? Or something?” Looking around though, there weren’t a lot of places to put one. The tables that weren’t cluttered with wiring and metal parts had beakers with various chemicals he _hoped_ were safely contained.

There was a sigh. Morty wasn’t sure if it was an angry one or not. But Rick stopped what he was doing, put down the screwdriver he threw a little fit over, and turned to make eye contact with Morty. He didn’t look mad or annoyed but it still made him swallow nervously.

“Okay, kid. You wa-AUrgh-nna know what I’m doin’?” Rick pushed his chair out and started rummaging through some of the boxes under the work table. It only took a moment or two before he pulled out some rolled up pieces of paper and unfurled them on the table beside the small mechanics he’d been messing with. One layer of the papers was clearly blueprints, Morty recognized the… the paper was blue, okay? What else would it be? The image looked like a gun with writing Morty couldn’t read. Some of it was in english and clearly his grandpa’s scribbles (he’d seen him write on the family calender in the kitchen a couple of times.) but the rest didn’t look like the latin alphabet at all. 

“W-wha-what is- what’s this--?”

“ _This_ is a prototype I’m working on. I gotta build it, test -Urp- it, and send it out for it to be mass-manufactured so I don’t have to waste my time with building thousands of ‘em.” He looked kind of proud. That made sense, who wouldn’t be proud of something they worked hard on? “And this here, Morty,” Rick gestured to the very small piece he had been working on. “Is the most important part. It-it-it’s gonna bring the whole thing together, Morty.”

“O-whoa-o-o-oh, why’s that, Rick?” Morty stepped in closer, a hand going to Rick’s shoulder ignoring how sweaty his grandpa’s blue henley had gotten. He was trying to get a better look or maybe guess what it was for but nothing in the blueprints looked like it.

“Your grandpa is-isn’t always the most uh..” He glanced to the hand on his shoulder for a second while his mouth tried to catch up with his brain. Morty was already delighted he was about to learn a little backstory on Rick. “N-n-not the most trusting-- especially with his _clients_.” He put the loose papers off to the side. The paper partially curled itself back up and rolled closer to the wall. Clients… Morty thought Rick was retired. That’s what the premise of him moving in with them was, wasn’t it? “This little baby gives me an upper hand, Morty. It’s going to change the game for me, Morty.” 

“Um..”

“D-don’t strain yourself too much.” Rick finally shrugged off Morty’s hand. He picked up the screwdriver he’d set down, fixed in the plating, and the piece lit up in his hand. “I deal with a _looooot_ of nasty characters. But you know what they say about keeping enemies close and all that. They pay real good, Morty, _real good._ ” Morty wasn’t really following where he was going but he was just glad Rick was talking so much. Rick placed his finger onto the piece of the small device that lit up. There was a very small sound, it was hard to pinpoint exactly what it was, like tiny hydraulics moved. There was a beep and a flash of light from it. “This puts my chemical makeup into a whitelist. When this thing gets mass produced it’s going to have this information encrypted into each weapon without those idiots even realizing.” He finally looked back to his grandson who looked blankly. “They can’t --Urp-- shoot me.”

_Who would- who would want to shoot his grandpa?_

“Wh-who- Why would someone want to shoot-- Why are you making- you’re making guns for people who want to shoot you?” Morty shrank a little. And Rick… Rick smiled at him. He turned to Morty and he smiled. It was the sort of smile that only came from detaching yourself from fear and consequences. The kind you do when you laugh in the face of danger.

“Like I said, you keep your enemies close. And grandpa’s the universe’s public enemy number one.”

Rick had turned back to work. And Morty stood there a little stunned. His grandpa was...so…. Cool! That was so cool!! For a second he forgot completely they had just been discussing Rick’s arms dealing schemes and his apparent criminal status. He was just absorbed in someone he was related to sounding like a badass. Maybe Morty had that in him somewhere too! After a minute too long into spacing out, he was brought back by a sharp pain on his finger. “Ow!!”

“You’re F-eEArp--fine.” Rick wiped his grandson’s finger and wrapped a bandage around it. The device in his hand, the one he’d finally finished, beeped and flashed just like before. But this time, while Morty had been spacing out, Rick had pulled out the rest of his little project, this had just been a finishing piece for it. Morty looked at his hand, feeling a little woozy about his finger being pricked, and then back to the elder who’d screwed in some plating of the finished weapon and he bristled a little.

“Y-you-you had a gun sitting in the garage this entire time?!” He raised his shoulders and clenched his fists, a tightening panic spreading through his chest. “That’s so dangerous!! What if someone broke in here? Or if one of us had found it?” 

“Shut up, moron.” Rick held the finished pistol up, looking just as sci-fi a gun could. He cocked the gun, it began lighting up, starting from the back and moving forward in a bright cyan. The man stood up from his seat, joints he hadn’t moved in a while cracking. “I built it this morning.” He pointed the barrel directly into Morty’s face and pulled the trigger.

_Honk honk!_

Morty opened his eyes to see the gun still in his face. Rick pulled it back slowly, grinning.

“See, Morty. Now you’re whitelisted too.”

“Rick, I th-think I sh-sh-shit myself.” He’d gotten so shaky from the sudden rush of adrenaline. If the Floridian humidity could muster a breeze he would feel it on his neck as sweat collected. Also, he didn’t actually shit himself, everything happened too quickly. Rick howled with laughter that had Morty fixated. He felt weak and shaky but Rick’s laugh forced its way through him too. Weak, warbly chuckling came from Morty too; awkward, terrified, and relieved. 

“Here, champ.” Rick squat down to place his gun carefully in a case and into a cupboard. While doing that, he reached into a bag of candy he kept under there to keep his blood sugar up. He tossed his grandson a lollipop. “Go take a break.”


End file.
